Selling with Facebook Stories (and Recruiting)- Part 1

One of the projects I am part of uses Stories for almost all of it’s recruiting. While some of the younger members, use Instagram, most of us are much more comfortable on Facebook.

Sidebar: One of the top recruiters in a large Network Marketing Program did all of her recruiting with Facebook Stories.   Considering the age and interests of the younger generation who frequent Instagram, that makes sense to me. 

For those who want to recruit with Instagram Stories or Instgram Reels, there are a ton of articles,  posts and courses that focus on Instgram.  There are almost no courses that focus on Facebook Stories and the ones that say they cover both have 10 lesson about Instagram for every one where they focus a short lesson on Facebook.

Given how critical this area is, I’m going to try to cover it here. There are two more posts in this series. Facebook Stories – Basic Controls and Timed Text covers creating Facebook Stories on Android Mobile devices. Selling with Facebook Stories – Part 3 covers using the basics covered in the first two posts to create Facebook Stories to recruit or sell. This post covers what you should put in your Stories and why.

I will note that REELS are one of the current hot trends are I will cover some of that here to.

Introduction to Selling with Facebook Stories

Facebook stories are short 20 second posts that show for 24 hours and then they disappear. Stories can be videos, images or text. They are still available to you in an archive, but other people can’t see them unless you post them again. For me it makes sense to store me stories in a folder on the cloud (like a Dropbox) so that they available on my phone and my desktop computer AND they are backed up in case my computer breaks down, is stolen or involved in a natural disaster.

On advantage that Facebook Stories have over other platforms is that viewers can post a message and that message will go straight to your inbox in Messenger. Responses on other platforms are not as convenient for recruiting. REELS are also short videos. They are longer and they do NOT disappear after 24 hours.

There is one key element about Stories and Reels. Unlike Posts. the audiences for Stories and Reels are NOT limited to just friends and friends of friends. They can go viral and reach a much wider audience. That is why recruiting with Facebook Stories and Facebook Reels is much more powerful than doing a post.

The KEY Advantage of Selling or Recruiting with Facebook Stories and Reels

As noted, Stories and Reels can reach a wide audience. It appears that the key metric is NOT Likes, Loves, Comments and Reply messages.

The key metric that Facebook uses to determine which Stories and Reels to share is how often they are watch to the end and even more, how often they are rewatched and paused. Anything that puts the in front of the viewer for longer than the actual length of the Story or Reel is a good sign that they interest the reader.

Since Facebook’s primary interest (other than making a profit) is the user experience. Anything that users like gets extra love from Facebook. Watching Stories and Reels for more time than their natural length is THE DEY indicator that users are interested in the content.

How Do We Get Our Story or Real Watched Longer?

Let’s Start with the Content of Your Stories or Reels

1. A list of types of Stories, sorted by their average reach:
   1. Selfie Videos with Text tend to have the greatest reach
   2. Interesting Selfie videos have the second greatest reach. However is it difficult to have a Call to Action in a video that just a selfie.
   3. An interesting video with text is next
   4. An interest video comes next
   5. A Selfie image with text comes next
   6. A Selfie Image is next with no text
   7. A Photo with text
   8. A photo
   9. A Scribble
   10. Sharing someone else’s Story or Reel

• There is a second tidbit of gold in that list. Facebook has indicated that roughly 84% of the people who watch Stories and Reels, watch with the sound off. If you are going to do recruiting with Facebook Stories or Reels, you should always add text
• One option is to start with a Great Curiosity Headline/Question. Follow this with too much text to read without pausing
• When you are doing a video, always remember the ENERGY! You need to tell the viewer that you really believe in what you are saying. You do this with the energy you put into your video. Try for double or triple your normal energy. It takes that kind of punch for your feeling to come across.
• Don’t do only Recruiting Stories and Reels Here are some sample ideas for other topics

Selling with Facebook Stories the 80/20 Rule

Research and experience from heavy users of Facebook posts and Stories is that you do not want to have all of your Stories be focused on Selling. The usual ratio quotes is 80% n9n-selling and 20% Selling. Use the non-selling Stories to let your viewers get to know you (behind the scenes), show them your sence of humor and share things that you really like.

Ideas for Non-Selling Stories

Calls to Action – Very Important When Selling With Facebook Stories

We normally think of having a Call to Action of posts or Stories that are intended to sell something. When you are Selling with Facebook Stories, you have another reason to include a Call To Action on your Stories. Facebook must figure out what Stories to show you first. They make this decision based on how often you engage with a person’s stories. As the seller we want to encourage the viiwers who do see our Stories to comment or answer a Poll, as often as we can.

The easiest Call to Action in when selling on Facebook (or recruiting) is a” Message me”. Lots of people call this DM Me (for Direct Message me – Direct message is an Instatgram term) or PM Me (Personal Message Me – a Facebook term), I prefer “Message me” since a lot of my target markets are not real savvy about the special lingo used by people who use Social Media a lot!

You can also use Polls – for example: “If you’d like more info choose any option in the Poll below”. There do not end up directly in your Message Box.

Selling with Facebook Stories form Your Desktop PC.

At the time of this writing, the desktop version of creating Facebook Stories is incredibly weak. It won’t let you upload videos and the ADD TEXT feature is very weak.

Note: Be sure to leave space at the top and the bottom of your Story. Facebook puts you profile image and controls like PAUSE over the top of your Story. Facebook puts you Name over the bottom of your Story.

#1 – Stories are at the top when you click the HOME Icon

#2 – Create a Story with the big BLUE PLUS Icom

#3 and #4 – Note that part of your Story is covered with a profile picture and controls at the top and a person’s name at the bottom. Leave room for those elements.

#5 – Note that some combinations or background and colored text are unreadable.

#1 – Click on the CREATE A PHOTO STORY and it will ask you to upload an image and then it will let you add text to the image. I suggest you add the text to the image for you upload it. You will be happier with the results about 99% of the time. Canva.com is widely used and has many features that help you create eye popping Story images and that is what you want. Take some time with these. Even though they disappear in 24 hours, you can use the, over and over and you can use them in other places.

#2 – If you click on the CREATE a TEXT STORY . it will go straight to the Text Edit screen. Again, it is worth creating these before hand. They are handy for pithy quotes,however they do not have much reach.

#3 – This area is where you will modify the text element when you do use it.

Here I clicked on the CREATE A PHOTO STORY and navigated to a folder where I have some stories saved.

#1 – I can drag the image and resize it by clicking on the image. Note that here it is worth dragging the image up a little to make more room for the name that will go on the bottom and some text that I plan to add as part of this demo

#2 – If I start typing text here it will show on the image. Note: you can change between five fonts and you can drag the or rotate the image. That is it!. You can’t resize the fonts or make the text box wider or taller. You can also change the text color.

#3 – Publish your story here. Note: this image is part of a two image set. The second one says “And I’m not coming back” and has a Call to Action.

#1 – I clicked on the image – It doesn’t give you a visual indication, but you can drag the image around the visible area.

#2 – drag to the slider to resize the image.

#3 – Click the ROTATE icon to rotate the image.

#1 Click “Add Text” and the color picker window pop-up along with the “START TYPING HERE” message on the image. You type on the the image where it says to Start Typing.

I typed and you can see the words go on new lines.

I’m shpwing two things here.

#1 – You can delete, drag and change to one of the five fonts. That is it. If I want the “Oh Hale Yes!” all on one line, I’ve got to hope one of the other fonts does it/.

#2 – You can click on ADD TEXT over on the left and create a second text on the image. You can add several if it works for you.

Press the BLUE SHARE TO STORY when you want to publish the story.

This drop down is how you change fonts

Here is the Desktop Story all in one image/
#1 – I clicked on the CREATE A TEXT STORY and this popped up.

#2 – You can type or copy.Paste a quote here (If you Google for “Short Quotes”, You will find lists of hundreds of quotes to chose from. It helps to use Emojis; (The Windows Key and a period pops of the Windows Empji;s wherever you are in Windows.)

#3 – You can change the font

#4 – You can change the background (you can not change the font color,)
#t – Click SHARE TO STORIES to publish the Story

This is the end of Part 1. Part 2 will cover the Mobile Device Story builder. It is much more powerful. You will have to us the Mobile version if you want to load ir create videos.

Highlights

There are three main point covered in this post on Selling with Facebook Stories

1. In order to get more new viewers you want viewers to pause or replay your Story. Facebook figures that if viewers watch a story for longer than the story length, the story must be interesting.
2. In order to move your stories closer to the first stories that a viewer see, you need to get the viers to engage with the Story. Facebook Figures that if a viewer often comments, message, likes, answers polls on posts from a person, they they would like to see more storie posted by that person.
3. Video Stores get more attention than static images. (This implies you must learn to use your Smart Phone, since the Desktop version of the Story Creator will not handle videos.
4. Over 80% of people who view Stories have the sound muted. Adding Text is a must!

Until Next Time – Have a Great Day! Oh Hale Yes!